


Reunion

by Wanderbird



Series: Time may be Linear (but people aren't) [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: "I'm sorry, Doctor."The Doctor doesn't even seem to hear him. She's too busy staring at the corpse beneath her, eyes wide as if she'd seen a ghost. Poor bloke. But space was cold and unforgiving, and it would have been a wonder if the fellow somehow survived."Doctor?" Graham prompts. "Doc, it's been hours. You need to let him go."When the Doctor answers, she sounds more lost in that moment than Graham has ever heard her. "He hasn't woken up. Why won't he wake up?"Eventually, he and Yas manage to tear her away. It isn't pretty. The three of them move the body into someone's old room at the Doctor's insistence, and sit her down for a cup of tea. Do their best to distract her. Life moves on.And alone in his room, Jack Harkness's body patches itself slowly back together.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Series: Time may be Linear (but people aren't) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616509
Comments: 12
Kudos: 319





	Reunion

Jack Harkness wakes up alone.

He is lying in his own bed in the TARDIS in his clothes that stink of death, and he has not seen light in _eons._ His mind is full of dying, over and over again, of cold and the same damned injuries that didn't want to _go away_ and all he knows is that he is finally someplace _warm_. He lies there for a good few minutes, putting two and two together to come up with five, before dragging himself out of bed. Fuck, he aches.

The Doctor notices instantly. Not that she immediately knows what it is she's noticed; just that something's changed, something's better. And then Jack limps out into the console room, and Graham makes a strained sort of sound, and she turns around and--

  
"Jack?" The floor has fallen out from under her, the world spins about them.  
Jack manages a charming smile. "Hey, beautiful." His voice is strange and hollow, even to his own ears. Hell, he even looks surprised to hear _himself_ , after all this time in a vacuum. And then his legs collapse beneath him.  
He swears.  
"Jack!" The Doctor rushes to his side, and when she reaches him, Jack is shivering violently, blazing hot with fever. His body is not used to having this much energy anymore, and his muscles have atrophied quite a bit. She wraps him in her arms, pulls him to his feet. "It’s been weeks! The fam thought you were never gonna wake up, no matter what I said. Guess I wasn’t too sure myself anymore.” It takes all of her strength not to burrow into his skin. This is not the time for touchy-feely reunions, not now when he can barely stand. “We've got to get you back to bed," she whispers, and Jack clutches at her shirt. "Out of curiosity, do you remember me? I don't think I've seen you since I first got this face."

The man stares up at her. Pauses. "I don't remember my own name right now, ma'am, much less anyone else's. I feel like I've met you before, but-- well that's about the best I can do."  
"How long were you out there?" The Doctor does her best to sound calm, but her best is not very successful.  
A shrug. "I lost track somewhere on the order of a few hundred thousand consecutive deaths." Jack licks his lips. His eyes are fixed on his hands, wonder in their gaze. "I think. Hard to keep track when life is just about as cold and empty as death, I mean it can be tricky telling the difference sometimes."

  
"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I never meant for this to happen."  
There is no response.

Graham is the first to break the silence. "Not to… interrupt anything," he asks, and his eyes flick from Jack to the Doctor and back again. "But, ah… who are you? What are you? You were dead just a minute ago, and now…"  
Jack opens his mouth as if to speak. Closed it. "I'm not sure," he rasps. "Sorry about that. I was… I was in space, and before that there was fire, and noise, and—yeah. Not sure if that helps." 

The Doctor takes a deep breath before she answers, a watery smile on her face.  
"Jack Harkness," she says in a rush. "Your name is Captain Jack Harkness, or at least that's what you go by, and I think this is genuinely the first time I've actively _wished_ for your normal introduction, you flirt.” She tries not to think too hard about that. She feels guilty enough as it is. “You're human, more or less, from the Boeshane Penninsula in the 51st century. Jack, meet my fam!" She turns, though she keeps one arm beneath Jack's shoulders as she points out each person. Just as well, because Jack sways whenever she moves. "Malcolm Graham, Yasmine Khan, and Ryan Sinclair, all humans as well, all from round about 21st century earth." Back to Jack, the Doctor brushes a stray bit of hair from his face. "They travel with me, like you did for a bit. I'm the Doctor."

Jack frowns. "Doctor. Doc-tor," the word rolls around in his mouth. He glances up at where she still holds him on his feet. "That's not the right face."  
"I know," gently, "I've changed."  
"You’re beautiful."

Now Yaz jumps in. "Not the right face? What does he mean, not the right face—wait a minute. When we first met, on the train, you said you were a white-haired Scotsman, didn’t you? Does this have something to do with that?”  
"Very good," the Doctor murmurs. "Yes, yes it has. I don't think Jack ever met white-haired Scotsman me, but he certainly met the next few before that, though I don't suppose you three know what that means either. As for the rest of your question, Graham, Jack here is a fixed point in time. He can never die-- or, well, he can," she amends, "but it doesn't stick. It can't. It's sort of a, a universal law, a _fact_ I suppose, that he'll always exist, and so he always does."

"See that sounds _really_ familiar," Jack pulls himself away a bit, bracing himself on the wall of the TARDIS instead of the Doctor. "You've said that to me before, haven't you?" Finally he stumbles forward, teetering on unsteady feet until he half-leans, half-falls onto the console of the TARDIS. Sends an admiring look at the crystal encasing it. "Damn," he whistled. "She's redecorated."  
"A few times, actually."  
A breathless grin, shaky but present on Jack's face. "It must've taken, what? Millions of years to grow that much crystal? And all because she thought you’d like it."  
"You remember her, but not me!?" The Doctor looks… unsurprised, beyond her cheerful outrage.  
"Of course I remember her!" Scarred hands caress the surface of the console. "Sort of, anyway. I know I've seen her before, talked to her before. Stunning thing. I missed her, I think. I haven't seen her in so long, but… I think she used to keep me safe, sometimes." he begins to chuckle. "Even when I was clinging to the outside like a barnacle as she flew through the middle of the time vortex, without anyone realizing I was there."  
"That _killed you,"_ the Doctor protests.  
"Only temporarily. She's the one who didn't let me get flung off into the void." Jack's eyes were beginning to clear more and more, she realized. Gone was the lonely, glazed-over blankness, replaced by a twinkle of humor. God, she loved him. So resilient. "I remember she saved me, when my ship was going to blow up. Not sure where I was, or why it was blowing up, but I remember sipping a cocktail on the bridge and toasting my imminent demise, and then-- well, then I was here, and there was dancing. But you wouldn't dance with me. I didn't push."

"Always such a flirt," she rolls her eyes. Jack always did like telling stories, and it did seem to be helping him come back to himself.

Jack keeps talking. "You were happy, but you had the shadows of war in your eyes. I loved you too much already to be that much of a dick, though I think I'd only first met you the day before. You were happy, and… well, that's enough for me. Even if you are a needy date," He winks. But then something else filters through his consciousness, and he grows somber again. "There was a girl there, too. I remember that. She was cute, and clever, and…"  
"Yes."  
"She was yours. Heart and soul."

  
It is the Doctor's turn to wallow for a moment, her mind filled with memory. "Her name was Rose."

Jack finally tears his gaze away. "How long have I been here?" Sudden.

"Judging by all the traces left on your coat?" The Doctor hesitates. She had not been looking forward to this part, and the guilt that came with it, that had flooded her the moment she saw the reading off her sonic. "Three million years, or thereabouts. I'm sorry, I should have found you sooner, I just--"  
"Not your fault." Forgiveness seemed to come so _easily_ to him. How? "You didn’t know I was out here. It could have been longer." Jack shivers, and it breaks her heart to see. "Besides, at least dying of hypothermia is more boring than painful. I'd rather this than another year that never was."  
She winces. "I'm so sorry about that, really I am--"

" _Also_ not your fault!" And then Jack is limping to her side to place one hand on hers, as gently as he can manage. As soon as he makes contact, his breath catches, and his eyes flick down to where they touch. It must be his first human contact in a very long time, she reminds herself, and forces a smile onto her face.  
"I promise, I'm still not mad at you.” It sounds like a confession. “I could _never_ stay mad at you."

"I'm… glad." The Doctor approaches again, at last. She hesitates-- but Jack pulls her into a hug as soon as she gets within reach, and then she can’t help but hold him tight, burrowing her head into his shoulder to breathe in that familiar scent. Even a million years in space can’t make Jack strange to her, even if she is _too bloody short_.  
"Oh," she whispers. Her blood pounds in her ears. "Oh, Jack, I've missed you." 


End file.
